In the tri-county area of Montgomery, Autauga and Elmore counties, he says, his county has the highest number of senior citizens.

Residents in the Project Lifesaver program wear a small personal transmitter around their ankle or wrist that allows them to be located quickly by law enforcement if they walk away from their home.

Autauga County recently secured a $6,200 grant through the work of the Autauga County Cooperative Extension Office from the Mid-South RD&C Council from the Alabama Department of Agriculture.

Teresa Lee, assistant to the mayor of the City of Prattville, said the program should rollout early next year. The city and county are hoping to secure more funds to purchase more transmitters.

Lee, who isn’t related to Bob Lee, said there are 93,000 people in Alabama with dementia, Alzheimer’s disease or another debilitating disease.

“The monitoring equipment will help us find where they are -- find them alive and unhurt,” she said. “It is a good program.

“It also saves money because when you launch a huge search and rescue effort for someone and you have no idea where they are you have to canvas a larger area,” Lee said. “It makes first responders more efficient in their rescue efforts.”

Bob Lee said he learned of Project Lifesaver through a newspaper article about a small town near Savannah, Ga. that had it. Later, he learned that Montgomery County had the program.

The problem hit home to him though because his son’s mother-in-law suffers from Alzheimer’s, and he wants her to remain safe. Lee also knows of another woman with the disease who walked away from her home when her husband was in the backyard. It took authorities four hours to locate her.

Lee brought the idea to the City of Prattville, which led the city, Autauga County and other groups to come together to begin the fundraising to launch the program.